“This is your one and only chance! Take all of your brood, and get the hell away from my family and our home!” I yelled, slowing my charge. I’d rather avoid hunting spiders across the forest for god knows how long if I could.

  The loud chittering sounds drove home something I had forgotten. Any of my old ability to tap into the language of the birds was long gone. English was the only language I was entirely fluent in these days, and this spider certainly didn’t speak it.

  That was going to be a problem as the integration phase continued. We wouldn’t have any chance of seeing a merchant until there were some pockets of safety, which meant any sort of translation abilities would be a no-go. And it’s not as though there was any way I would have the time to devote any advancement to it on my own, either, not with Ash’s life on the line.

  To the spider’s credit, they were kind enough to choose a more universal language. One of its pedipalps shot forward, stabbing straight toward the center of my body. It was sharper than any I had ever seen on a spider. Sadly for them, that only mattered if it could land the blow.

  Knocking it aside with my forearm as I took a half step forward, I turned slightly and brought the blade of my weighty sword down hard. The appendage fell to the ground, a green ichor spraying from the face of the spider as it reared up. Pain and anger flashed in all of its eyes.

  Accompanying that look was another, one I was all too familiar with seeing in the eyes of my enemies. It had seen me for the danger I really was. And it was scared.

  I didn’t care.

  I had given the spider a chance to run. Instead, it had answered with violence. It could not be allowed to prey on others fighting for their lives in these woods. Sprinting forward into the opening it had created, I jabbed upward.

  The spider managed to turn at the last moment, and instead of a single easy killing blow, a leg fell severed to the ground, still twitching. It seemed even fear wasn’t enough to fully get through to the rational brain inside its skull. Again, the spider made the wrong decision, its fangs coming down at lightning speed in a desperate attempt to take off my head. Running for its life would likely have bought it time.

  But now I just had an easy opening. Deep into the wide open mouth, and with a sickening crunch, out through the exoskeleton on the other side, I plunged my runic blade. Venom dripped onto the sword, sizzling loudly everywhere it made contact. That wasn’t something I wanted touching my bare skin anytime soon.

  I ripped my blade free, throwing myself out of the way of the monstrous spider’s collapse to the ground. It wasn’t dead yet, but it no longer had the strength to fight against the unyielding force of gravity. Its own weight snapped the rest of its legs as it crashed down, more loud sounds of pain escaping its mangled form.

  With one final quick swing, I brought the blade down onto its skull, cutting through with a cracking sound and ending its suffering. I wasn’t one to prolong anything like that, unless absolutely necessary. Just because I was good at killing didn’t mean I had ever enjoyed it.

  The spiders around us vanished into the woods. Any ideas they had harbored of joining their boss were long since gone. They fled for their lives, hoping I wouldn’t chase. And for now, they would get their wish. I had much more important matters to handle.

  The leveling notifications hovering in the periphery of my awareness gave me a burst of hope as I dashed to my daughter, still protected by her loyal pup. The wound on his side had stopped bleeding, but I’d need to patch it up soon. It wouldn’t be pleasant for either of us, but healing magic wasn’t within my reach just yet, so the mundane way would have to do.

  “Ashley, I need you to listen. I know how much this all hurts, and I know how terrifying this all is, but you’re still breathing, so please do exactly what I say.” Her breathing calmed, just enough to tell me something was getting through. Hopefully, that meant everything else would.

  “In your mind, you are probably seeing some sort of level-up notification. I know that this seems insane, but you need to focus on it. This is the important part: put all of the attribute points you gained into your constitution. It’s going to help keep you alive while we work for the full cure. Do not pick a class if you have the choice. We will do that once you’ve rested more. This will all feel really strange, but I promise I’m going to be here, protecting you, as your body settles,” I said, using my best reassuring dad voice I could muster.

  She swallowed slightly, and her breathing grew a bit more ragged, but I was willing to credit that to her body adjusting to the System for the first time. She had just gained her first level. For most people, it was somewhat of a nauseating experience. For someone as sick as Ash, I wasn’t sure how bad it would be. But it was something we had to risk.

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  Increasing her constitution wouldn’t cure her cancer, at least, not at the rate we’d be able to do so. If it were only me alone in these woods, it was possible I could outpace the cancer, but even then it would still be a gamble, and that wasn’t even taking into account how bad of a shape my body would be left in after. No, the main reason I wanted her to focus on that attribute was just to buy us time.

  We needed to find a class that had some sort of advanced regenerative abilities, but that would have to wait until she was awake again. For now, I had to focus on keeping her safe while her body worked to process the changes.

  I didn’t like the idea of moving her back to the house, and not just because of how weak she already looked. The house would be a giant target for the monsters now roaming the world. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if something had already moved in. I didn’t need to waste time dealing with an infestation just yet.

  What I did need to do, though, was to start a fire. Ash was shivering, and as warm as Floof was, he was in rough shape, too. I needed to cauterize his wound. He wouldn’t like it, and I was sure I’d hate doing it too, but it had to happen.

  Normally, you wouldn’t dream of chopping lumber with a sword. But considering the magic inside this one, I wasn’t too worried about any damage a dead log was going to do to the blade, even if it wasn’t up to steel-cutting strength just yet. It would get there in time, assuming my body could handle the task. And I would make sure it could.

  There was going to be a lot of work ahead of us. The monsters between the rest of our family and us were no joke. Just because I was keeping my focus on Ash at the moment didn’t mean that I wasn’t worried about her mother and brother. There just wasn’t anything I could do to help them, no more than I already had.

  Heather had the journal I had written with her. She had even read it, even if she’d questioned me over and over about the contents. I always wondered how much she truly believed all the stories I’d told her. Now I just wished she could have been able to continue to live in that doubt.

  Setting all of the logs down near Ash, I grabbed a smaller branch and went to work starting the fire. There was a trick I had seen some outdoorsmen use that involved a string and a stick. I didn’t have any string, but luckily, the principle should still hold as long as I could spin the stick fast enough.

  I wasn’t fast enough to do it on my own, but with the first layer of the sword empowered, I could draw enough of the mana from within it into myself to do something as simple as this. When compared to shoulder checking a spider, it was child’s play to push the mana flow down into my hands for this.

  I could feel the heat increase as the friction of rubbing my hands together rapidly spun the stick. Smoke started to rise from the log below, the stick boring a small hole into the top of it. Closing my eyes to focus on the mana draw, I again channeled more mana into my hands. Ash had started shivering, and Floof had reopened his wounds, trying to keep her warm. This needed to start faster.

  The mana singed my fingertips, rushing through my dormant channels. My body wasn’t ready to channel this much, this fast yet, but I only had to hold it a few more seconds, and unlike the injuries of the other two, my skin would heal easily enough. A small bright spark shot from my thumb, just as the log finally caught fire below.

  Carefully, I piled up the wood onto my small flame, building it into a huge bonfire. It risked being a signal for anything lurking in the woods, but I was taking a gamble it might serve more as a warning that I wasn’t someone to be fucked with. That was the same reason I was leaving the giant carcass of the spider nearby.

  After driving the runic sword’s tip into the heart of the blaze, I left it there to heat up while I checked on Ash and Floof.

  “Good boy. You’ve done a great job today,” I said, scratching the wounded dog behind his ear. “I’ve gotta clean and close your wound, though, and you aren’t going to like the only way I can do it right now. I know you can’t understand me, but I promise I’ll try to make it quick.”

  Moving my hand to Ash’s forehead, I found it warmer than I’d have liked, especially given she was still shivering. I was worried she hadn’t been aware enough to follow my instructions. I couldn’t risk that being the case. We were too close to saving her life to let that new hope sink already.

  “Floof, come here,” I called to the dog as I rose and grabbed the sword from the fire. He rolled over on the ground next to me, seemingly understanding what was about to happen.

  Before I touched the sword to his body, I cleaned the wound as best I could with a torn-off part of my shirt. It exposed what I had been worried about. One of the spiders had managed to get some of its venom into him. Near the ragged wound, one of their fangs still held on, embedded in his side.

  Floof whined as I pulled it free, and then as I worked the heated tip of the sword through the entirety of his wound. I burnt away as much of the poisoned flesh as I could. It wouldn’t get rid of all the venom, but it should give him a chance at recovery. He had earned as much tonight.

  Once I finished, I carried him back over to Ash, laying him by her side. They were both going to have a painful night of recovery, and I still had to make another gamble on helping her. There was no sleep in sight for me.

  The noises all around the two children kept them huddled together in fear through the darkest part of the night. Adam and his brother both knew they would never see their family again, and they were far too scared to even dare hope they’d live through the night. But somehow, despite the carnage they had just survived, dawn still broke through the trees.

  They had made it deeper than either of them had realized in their mad flight. In the distance, Adam could almost make out the wall that surrounded the small village their Dad had ordered them to find. Both of the children would find no reprieve or safety there, but they would take their first true steps toward their destiny.

  —Memories of Adam Miller before he found Earth